Posts Tagged ‘regional assessment workshop’

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Maine Arts Assessment Workshops

December 12, 2011

Last week in Maine

Last Wednesday started out as a very funny day for me. My husband kindly rescued me by bringing me a pair of shoes after I realized that I had two right shoes with me. After that my umbrella wouldn’t close. Once I got past the laughter of both situations I had a marvelous day and realized once again how fortunate I am to work with soooooo many wonderful arts educators across the state!

Later in the day we had professional development opportunities happening in two different locations.

At Bates College… three of our arts ed teacher leaders were presenting three different workshops.

  • Quick, Down, Dirty AND Effective Art Assessment (K-5 Visual Art) with visual art teacher leader Laura Devin and her colleagues from RSU1 Karen Wolfe and Rosemary Polizotto
  • Why create criteria based on MLR standards with student involvement ? with teacher leader and  Visual Art Educator Richmond Middle/High School Jeffrey Orth
  • Finding the Hidden Treasure in Art with Student Self Assessments with teacher leader and Visual Art Educator Brunswick High School Jennie Driscoll

Laura, Karen, and Rosemary's session participants

Jennie's session, viewing artwork

Jeff presenting

The rainy cool day didn’t keep folks from attending. The three workshops had almost 20 participants; visual art educators and Bates students. It was a wonderful afternoon hosted by Maine arts assessment leadership team member and teacher at Bates College Bronwyn Sale. Thank you to Jennie and Bronwyn for their work in planning the event! A great big thank you to Bates College for partnering on this event!

Assessment webinar… The second opportunity was the arts assessment webinar, Standards Based Assessment in the Arts, the 3rd in a series of 5 webinars. The webinars are facilitated by Rob Westerberg and Catherine Ring. Guests on the webinar included three teacher leaders: Jake Sturtevant (Bonny Eagle High School music educator), Leah Olson (Hampden Academy visual art educator), and Charlie Johnson (Mount Desert Island High School visual art educator). Also joining the webinar was Dr. Jeff Beaudry, USM professor and Maine’s assessment planning committee member and Marcia McCaffrey, co-chair of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (leading the revisions of the national arts standards) and NH Dept of Education arts consultant.

There were over 50 participants on the webinar. If you missed it you can access the archived webinar at https://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/_a827390218/p9s0w2om2jv/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

You can also access the past two webinars and meeting plans at http://www.maine.gov/education/lres/vpa/assessment.html

The next webinar is scheduled for January 4th and the topic is An Elementary Discussion: How in the World Can I Possibly Do This? The topic that will be addressed is

  • Addressing the unique needs of elementary arts educators

To join the meeting, go online to http://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/pk201012/ (sign in as “guest”). Conference Number: 1-866-910-4857, Passcode: 140893 you can go to this link: https://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/_a827390218/pk201012/

On February 1, 2012 the final webinar will be held called Leadership and the Arts. The session will address:

  • The Role of Teachers
  • The Role of Administrators
  • The Role of the greater Community

To join the meeting, go online to http://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/pk201013/ (sign in as “guest”). Conference Number: 1-866-910-4857, Passcode: 140893. Please be sure and invite your administrators to join you for this webinar!

Posted in assessment, Curriculum and Instruction, Leadership, Standards Based Education, VPA | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Mid-coast Regional Assessment Workshop

October 30, 2011

Jefferson, Friday, October 29th

This past Friday in Jefferson another regional assessment workshop was held, this time for the mid-coast arts teachers. It proved to be a wonderful opportunity for 22 arts educators to re-connect and for many it was the first time meeting. The all-day event was arranged by the Director of the Midcoast Regional Professional Development Center Christine Anderson-Morehouse, in the beautiful new Jefferson, K-8 school. A HUGE thank you to Christine for making the arrangements! 

I was glad to have the chance to be with arts educators engaged in learning more about arts education assessment plus I saw two of my previous students. One is the principal at Jefferson School, the other principal at the South Bristol School.

The all-day workshop started with the history and an overview on Maine’s assessment initiative.  Teacher leaders Shannon Campbell, art teacher from Stonington-Deer Isle Elementary School and Allysa Andersen, music teacher from Camden-Rockport Middle School facilitated assessment sessions in their disciplines. Open Educational Resource (OER) and art teacher from Camden-Rockport Middle School shared the many resources identified by the OER arts team last year.

Some comments from participants included what they learned:

  • Assessment Strategies
  • All the technology info thats helpful in quick bursts to assist what we already are teaching
  • I learned about many resources. I’m excited to look into them more.
  • I learned how other teachers are approaching assessment
  • Varied assessment forms and formats
  • I learned that much of what we do as music teachers IS assessment
  • Good ideas that work well!
  • Online free resources

We know that one day is valuable but that it will take many more to make changes that will impact student learning positively. Participants left with many questions and some are included below.

  • How do I streamline figure out what the priorities are?
  • Should there be a statewide standard rubric form?
  • Will this type of workshop be repeated at a higher level with the opportunity for us to bring rubrics to critique them and make them better?
  • Could we have more discussions on standards based assessments?
  • How to implement comprehensive assessment on a schedule where I meet over 300 students once a week for 40 minutes with only 5 minutes between classes, and 2 prep periods a week.

Participants left asking to meet another time during the school year to further develop ideas and to learn more!

Some of the work created in Shannon's session

Allysa's session

Posted in Curriculum and Instruction, Leadership, Opportunity, Professional Development, Standards, VPA | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »